Mary Butler (Waterford, Fianna Fail)
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290. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if applicants placed on the reserve list were successful in securing funding under a programme (details supplied); the name of the applicants; the number of successful applicants that did not take up the programme; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [54404/18]

Joe McHugh (Donegal, Fine Gael)
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Following a two-stage international assessment process, 36 awards (18 Starting grants and 18 Consolidator grants) were made in March 2018 by the Irish Research Council under its Laureate Awards programme. These awards were made in three panel domains - life sciences, physical sciences and engineering, and the arts, humanities and social sciences.

In addition, there were 31 proposals designated by the international expert panels as fundable reserve proposals. These proposals meet the required standard of excellence and are ranked in order of merit. The reserve list applicants are distributed across the three panel domains and the two award types; effectively creating 6 rank lists.

The reserve panels are activated if a) additional funding became available in respect of the Call or b) if one or more of the awardees was not in a position to take up or proceed with the award. If an awardee returns his/her award, a reserve list candidate of the same panel domain and award type is subsequently offered the award based on their ranking.

Two Starting Grant Laureate awardees (Dr Larisa Florea and Dr Ted Vaughan) from the Physical Sciences and Engineering Panel were successful in winning Starting Grants from the European Research Council in July 2018. As it was not possible for these awardees to conduct research under both grants simultaneously, and as the European Research Council awards have substantially higher monetary value than the Laureates, the two researchers returned their Laureate awards. Accordingly, two Starter Grant applicants from the Physical Sciences and Engineering Panel domain reserve list were selected for awards in order of ranking, namely Professor Laurence Gill and Dr Jonathan Mackey.

In November-December 2018, two further Laureate awardees from the Physical Sciences and Engineering panel were successful in securing major research grants. Again, it is not possible for these awardees to hold both their new grants and the Laureate awards simultaneously, and are terminating their Laureate awards. The Council is currently examining funding two further awards from the reserve panel, in order of ranking.